Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2017

Copyright © Simon McDermott 2017

Simon McDermott asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © February 2018 ISBN: 9780008232634

For my father

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Pride of Britain Awards, November 2016

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Photo Section

About the Publisher

Pride of Britain Awards, November 2016

The lights were blinding.

I was sat surrounded by some of Britain’s most famous faces – Simon Cowell, Stephen Hawking and Prince Charles. Two cameramen made their way over to my table, one positioning himself right in front of me. I could see the red light. I knew they were recording and my heart was pounding. On the stage, James Corden filled the screen, his voice booming across the room:

‘There’s a carpool karaoke star I want to pay tribute to this evening that isn’t to do with me. He’s 80 years old and he has the voice of Frank Sinatra and instead of Sunset Boulevard, he likes to cruise the mean streets of Blackburn, Lancashire. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr Ted McDermott and his son Simon.’

The screen cut to a video of me driving with my dad in the car as he belted out ‘Volare’. I felt pride and heartbreak all at once. There was the dad I knew and loved. He was happy and full of joy, with little sign of the confusion and aggression that had blighted our lives for the past four years. The interview cut to a picture of Mum and Dad when they were younger and then to Mum as she sat there with tears in her eyes: ‘You do get upset about it. The person that you knew is slowly going away,’ she said.

How did we get here?

My dad, Ted, was diagnosed with dementia in 2013, when he was 77. He can no longer recognize his family or where he is. It’s been devastating to watch this insidious disease take him over, but through everything, music has been the one thing that’s kept us together. Dad still loves to play his records at full volume as he sings around the house, remembering the words to every song, even if he doesn’t recognize anything else around him.

Living with dementia means that no day is ever the same. There are moments when Dad is happy and caring and moments when he can get incredibly angry and upset but not know why. Evenings he’ll often spend hours wandering around the house, shouting my mum’s name, or looking for people who aren’t there.

It was after one particularly bad outburst that I took Dad driving around the Ribble Valley in Lancashire, playing his old backing tracks to try and calm him down. It didn’t take long before he was singing along in perfect tune. Dad – for a moment – was back to his old self and all the confusion and aggression had gone.

Those drives in the car gave us something to hold on to during the really bad times. I started to record them just for myself and Mum, but then I had the idea of uploading them to Facebook, with a link to a fundraising page I’d set up to support the Alzheimer’s Society who’d supported us. In just a few short weeks the videos had been watched millions of times worldwide. The donations came pouring in and before I knew it we had raised over £150,000 for the charity to help other families like us.

Now I was about to go onstage to receive a Pride of Britain Award for raising dementia awareness. It was one of the most surreal moments of my life as Sir Cliff Richard and Dame Joan Collins appeared to present me with the award. ‘I can’t believe your dad sells more records than I do,’ said Cliff.

For Dad, his one true passion has always been music. He’s been singing since he was a young boy, growing up in a noisy house with thirteen brothers and sisters, and his musical ability was always encouraged. Although my grandparents didn’t have a lot, the family never went short. My grandad was hard-working, with a job in the forge and lots of friends down at the local pub, while my grandmother was a strong and loving mother who knew everyone on the estate where she lived. Dad had a typical childhood for the time – his younger years were about football or playing out in the woods at the back of the estate. Once he left school, one of his many jobs was as a Butlin’s Redcoat, where he travelled the country singing in clubs. He earned himself the nickname ‘The Songaminute Man’ because of the many different songs he could perform by heart.

Dad had just turned 65 when we started to notice his memory going. Mum picked up on it first – he would forget what he was doing, forget names and faces. Next came the aggression, the frustration and finally the realization that the person we knew was slowly fading away.

I’d always hoped Dad would write his own book one day – not least because he was a legendary storyteller when I was a kid. At family parties he’d often be found with a group of my cousins at his feet, enthralled by his stories. The tales would be greatly embellished, dramatic and over the top, but to young kids they were mesmerizing. One Christmas years ago, I bought him a blank notebook in which to write everything down, but dementia came and took away his past before he had a chance.

And now it’s my job, as his son, to capture as much as I can about Dad before he’s lost to us for ever. This book documents his life growing up as the eldest of fourteen children, his life onstage, his loves, and then later the devastating effects of dementia on him and his family – as well as how we pulled together to help him finally receive the recognition for his singing that he always deserved. Things are very mixed up for Dad – he can no longer tell his story without it becoming confused – so this is his story as told by others. I spoke to those people who knew him best: his remaining brothers and sisters, his friends, his teenage sweetheart and my mum, his wife of more than forty years. Where possible, these interviews have been used fully, alongside first-hand stories that Dad told me over the years. I’ve done my best to recreate them as best as I can, though I know some stories will be for ever lost in time.

I so desperately miss my dad. Even though he’s still around and I see him all the time, he’s very much in his own world, and it’s painful to watch Mum look after the man she loves. The thing is, when he was well I never really understood him for what he was. To me he was just Dad – the guy at home who would tell me off, get in the occasional mood, go out singing, love being the centre of attention, fly off the handle, care too much and be embarrassingly quirky. This book has become not only the story of my dad’s life but my story, too. I’ve been given the gift of finally discovering the person my father is, why he behaves the way he does, his flaws, his weaknesses and his hidden strengths, which has, in turn, revealed to me who I am.

When I was a young kid I thought my dad was the greatest man in the world. I lost that feeling for a while. But now I can say I’m the proudest man on the planet to have Ted McDermott as my father – the kind, the moody, the sensitive, the egotistical, the complicated, the brilliant, Songaminute Man.

This is his story.

Chapter 1

Wednesbury is a small town right between Birmingham and Wolverhampton. It’s part of the Black Country – so-called, according to Ted, by Queen Victoria in the 1800s. The story goes that Victoria was on a train being driven around the country when she looked out of the window to see the air thick with smoke from the many thousands of factories. ‘This is such a black country,’ she said, and the name stuck.

Ted McDermott was born in Wednesbury on 14 August 1936 to Hilda and Maurice McDermott. He was the first of fourteen children and a cheeky, chatty kid who wasn’t afraid to talk to anyone. You could say his childhood was unremarkable in many ways, although, despite being punctuated by war and hardship, it was loving, with a strong sense of family and a determination to make the best of what they had.

Back in the Thirties, Wednesbury was a junction of goods yards, railways and factories. In the evening, the glow from the metal manufacturing lit up the sky for miles around. During the Industrial Revolution, hundreds of Irish settlers arrived in Wednesbury to do the digging – new roads, new railways, new everything.

The McDermotts were such settlers – the majority coming from Sligo on the west coast of Ireland. Legend has it that Dermot was one of the kings of Ireland before it was taken over by the English. Years later, Ted would sit and reimagine this history, telling his son that Dermot was merely the poet to the King of Ireland. ‘You’re from a family of poets!’ he would say.

It was against this industrial backdrop that Ted’s parents were born and raised. Ted’s mum, Hilda Carter, was born with warm red hair and a personality to match. Ted’s father, Maurice McDermott, worked in the forge most of his life. He was a quiet, small, thickset Black Country man, but he lacked the strong accent of his friends and colleagues. He worked hard during the day, and would sing down the local pubs at the weekends whenever he could, often wearing a suit, like most of the other men on the estate. It was clear where Ted inherited his love of singing.

Like most young couples of the time, Hilda and Maurice met locally and married quickly. Ted, their first child, was born soon after, followed with precise regularity by Maurice, Ernie, Fred and Colin. The young family were growing fast and in 1942 they all moved across town to the newly built 18 Kent Road in Friar Park – a council estate to the east of Wednesbury. It was the first time that a generation of McDermotts had moved away from Brickkiln Street, where Maurice had been brought up.

There was nothing lavish or luxurious about Maurice and Hilda’s new house – it was small and red brick with a tiny garden at the front and a back kitchen leading out on to a simple back garden. It was spartan inside but the young couple soon made it their own, relying on hand-me-downs from family members and Hilda’s thrifty eye. She could spot a good piece of material at 50 yards, barter over the price until it was within the weekly budget, and then manage to knock together two sets of curtains. No one had a clue how she could make so little stretch so far, but it was just as well given how many mouths there would eventually be to feed.

Hilda’s shrewd money skills really came into their own during the war – while the McDermotts were entitled to more rationing coupons than most because of their swelling numbers, Hilda cut herself deals with the smaller, richer families, who would pay extra for the food the McDermotts got for less. Mrs Cook, who lived up the road and was a keen baker, would take Hilda’s butter vouchers and happily give her back double the amount of margarine. Even without the food that was traded away, Hilda knew how to feed a family of sixteen and would always have a pot on the go in the kitchen. She was friendly with all the local milkmen, bread men and grocers, doing deals with everyone and swapping her ration coupons like a pro.

The house changed very little over the years: there were three bedrooms upstairs – one master bedroom, a smaller back bedroom and a tiny single bedroom to the side. The toilet was out the back, to the side of the kitchen. The house might have been small, but it was their home and Hilda kept it as clean as she could. She was bright and entrepreneurial, and poured all of that skill into running a house and large family like clockwork.

It was the same routine every day, beginning with making sure Maurice had a proper breakfast to set him up for his day as a drop forger at the forge – a job he kept most of his life. Once he had gone to work, Hilda would turn her attention to the house and family. The kids were washed and fed, then she would prepare a pot of food for lunch and dinner, empty the fireplace of embers and re-lay it with sticks collected from the garden and coal pushed up the road in a wheelbarrow. Then followed the endless dusting with a dustpan and brush, bed-making, mending and knitting. Hilda went about these chores with her old apron tied around her waist and a cloth covering her hair.

Washdays meant boiling water on the gas stove before carrying it into the yard, where she washed and mangled sheets, clothes and nappies. Depending on the weather, these were hung out to dry either in the yard or in front of the fireplace, although they were always tidied away from view if Hilda received a visitor.

This is the backdrop to Ted’s growing up.

A lot was expected of everyone and life wasn’t comfortable compared to today’s standards, especially when the other children – Mary, Jane, John, Chris, Marilyn, Joyce, Malcolm, Gerry and Karen – arrived. Hilda and Maurice slept in the tiny single bedroom at the back. The girls took the second smaller bedroom and the boys top-to-tailed in the larger master bedroom. Ted, being the eldest, had the single bed, while the rest of the boys slept in the two double beds. Each bedroom had a small window covered with Hilda’s handmade curtains, and minimal furniture to make the most of the space. There were extra blankets for the really cold winter nights – not that they were often needed with everyone crammed side by side in the tiny rooms.

By modern standards, the house was cluttered – not in the sense that it was untidy or uncared for, but simply due to the number of young kids running about. The front door was always open, with Hilda’s neighbours and friends either popping by to say hello or catch up on the local gossip.

Bedtime could often be chaos, with Hilda dealing with the girls and then impatiently shouting the boys up to their room. Once everyone was in bed, she would close the door and the boys would be quiet until she went downstairs. The minute they heard the front-room door shut and knew the coast was clear, there would be a scramble for an extra jumper for warmth or a spare coat to use as a pillow.

It was often said that Ted was blessed with his father’s caring nature, and growing up in such a tight-knit family meant that from an early age he developed a strong sense of responsibility towards the family. Some of Ted’s earliest memories were of watching his father get ready for work every morning, and perhaps, on some level, the importance of providing for your family was impressed on him from a young age.

There were no holidays and very little spare money for treats, apart from on Sundays when Maurice would bring back a bag of sweets for the kids. Although Ted’s early years were hand-to-mouth, they were also spent finding fun outdoors. Come rain or shine, he and his friends could uncover adventure right on their doorstep. Behind the house outside the back garden was the Bluebell Wood. It had two ponds and was teeming with wildlife. Walking through the wood took you to the old sewage beds, where the treated sewage was dumped and in the summer months methane would heat up the ground and steam pour out. It was a very particular and overwhelming smell that could linger for a long time, often clinging to the hair and clothes of those who walked near it. Further on there were football pitches and ‘The Jungle’ – overgrown land full of silver birch trees. Ted, his siblings and friends from the estate would often play on this land in the summer, building dens, making mischief and hiding out. It would be the first place that Hilda would look when calling the children for their tea, coaxing them in with promises they could return as soon as it was light the next day – they would have slept there all night if they could.

In those pre-television days, the young Ted was fascinated by nature. This was something encouraged by Hilda, particularly if he took some of his younger brothers and sisters outside with him to give her some peace and quiet. Hilda liked that Ted could sense she had more than enough to worry about with the feeding and raising of so many children and, as a result, he soon developed a fantastic knack of knowing when to disappear. As a young child, Hilda would often give the young Ted a spare slice of bread, telling him to go and sit in the garden and whistle for the birds to come. Sitting there, on the low stone wall, the birds would slowly but surely fly down out of the trees, pecking up the bread that Ted had scattered around him. If he didn’t have school, Ted could sit there for hours waiting to feed those birds.

Although life had a quiet pace, there were plenty of local characters around to provide drama – the main culprit being the local farmer, Mr Rumble, who owned Grumbles Farm. It was surrounded by cornfields, with small barns full of chickens and some pigs. All the neighbourhood kids were scared of Rumble – or Grumble as he became known – and they dared each other to get anywhere near the farm. There were lots of rumours that Mr Rumble didn’t like children, especially those who trespassed on his land. He would chase any intruders away, no matter what their age, cursing and swearing as much as he could.

At the back of the farm ran the railway marshalling yard. Hundreds of steam trains would park there overnight, and coal, which was being mined in the local pits, would be shipped around the country from the yard, while metals and goods that had been made at the factories nearby would be held in huge stores waiting to be transported. It was at the yard that all the big steam engines were repaired before they went back into service, and the railway line that passed through the town was the link connecting Wednesbury to the rest of the country – from Crewe further north to London down south. You could smell the oil before even setting foot in the yard – it was always in the air whatever time of year, but the scent was even stronger in the summer heat. All the carriage repairs took place at night and the tinkering of machinery and testing of engines could be heard long after the residents nearby had gone to bed. It became the reassuring sound that signalled bedtime for Ted and his brothers and sisters.

Maurice was close to all of his children, but he also worked long days, accepting all the work he was offered so that he could bring home as much extra cash as possible. It was Hilda who ran the household. Every Friday, Maurice would bring home a small brown envelope containing his wages and Hilda would take out what she needed to keep the house going, giving him back whatever was left for spending money that week. Maurice wasn’t a big drinker, but he’d often let off steam down the local pubs, getting up and singing whenever he could.

Much of the manual work came from the two huge factories that were the epicentre of manufacturing around Friar Park – Elwell’s and the Deritend. Elwell’s made gardening tools and The Deritend Stamping Company was the forge where Maurice worked, which dated back to 1900. Its creation meant lots of jobs for men like Maurice, who lived locally, but there were also a number of people needing a wage who travelled in from across Wednesbury to work in such a steady environment. It was hard graft, but it was a company known for a dedicated work force, long hours and a strong team spirit. Throughout the day, each time the hammers dropped, the boom could be heard right across Friar Park.

Every Christmas there was a party for all the kids and, when Ted was 5 years old, Hilda took him down to the club to join in the festivities. It was the first time he’d been to such a big party, and Hilda had sewn him a smart suit especially for the occasion. When they got there the room was full of young children running around; Christmas decorations brightened up the usually bleak, grey room and there were tables heaped with sandwiches, cakes and trifles. For Ted, this was heaven and he immediately found a small gang of kids to play with.

‘Our Maurice will pick him up at five,’ said Hilda to some of the women who’d been brought in from the factory floor to organize the party.

‘Behave yourself, Ted,’ she shouted as she left the room.

The whole afternoon went brilliantly. It was something that Ted would remember all his life. There were traditional party games like pass the parcel, musical chairs and pin the tail on the donkey, a visit from Father Christmas, and enough sweets and trifle to sink a ship. At 5 p.m., just after clocking off from work, Maurice picked Ted up from the party. The young boy was tired out, so Maurice carried him all the way home.

As soon as he got through the front door at Kent Road, Ted woke up. ‘It was brilliant, Mom!’ he said the minute his eyes opened, and he went on to excitedly talk about the afternoon he’d had, sparing no detail. Soon after teatime, Ted was fast asleep again, so Hilda carried him upstairs, helped him out of his clothes and tucked him into bed. He was asleep the minute his head hit the pillow and Hilda carried his suit down to the kitchen, ready to wash it. She did the usual check of his pockets.

‘What the hell is this?’ she shouted. Her hands were full of jelly, cream and custard.

The suit was ruined. She was fuming.

‘Have you seen this?’ she shouted at Maurice, as if it was his fault. Maurice shook his head. He had no idea why Ted would do something so daft and he was angry that perfectly good material had been wasted.

The next morning Hilda was waiting in the kitchen when Ted came padding down the stairs, seemingly oblivious to what he’d done. ‘You’ve ruined that suit, you have … putting all that food in there. Didn’t you have enough to eat at the party?’

Ted looked distraught but Hilda suddenly realized what he’d done. ‘I only brought the food home for the others, Mom, so we could all share it because they didn’t get to come to the party.’ Hilda’s heart melted. She gave him a huge hug, explaining to him how he shouldn’t put jelly and custard in his pockets again, no matter how much he wanted to bring it home to share with the others.

The McDermott household was a thrifty one and, like Hilda, Ted was resourceful and would find unusual ways to help out. Sometimes, he and his friends would sneak through the fencing at the back of the house, and past terrifying Grumble, so that he and the other boys from his road could make their way down to the railway marshalling yard and pick coal that had been delivered for the steam engines from the sidings. It was something that would be repeated every winter and, as the boys got older, more and more planning went into it. ‘You could hear them all in the middle of the night,’ says Ted’s younger brother John. ‘Us younger ones would all be tucked up in bed and then you could hear Ted, Dad, Maurice and a couple of their friends going through the fence at the end of the back garden.’ Getting through the fencing was a mission, but once they were in, it was a free-for-all. ‘It’s what got us through those winters,’ says John.

They were canny too: one particular day the lads became aware that there was a copper down the road stopping locals suspected of taking the coal. So they decided to fill up some bags and hide them in the woods until the next morning when one of them could come back to collect them. It was a well-known fact that, if the copper did catch you, he would tell you off and confiscate the coal – before keeping it for himself.

‘There also used to be a big tree at the end of the garden and, one winter, some of the blokes from the street all helped to saw it down,’ says John. ‘The whole street shared that wood for months.’

As they got older, Ted and his gang spent every minute together and as soon as he arrived home from school, he would be straight out the door playing with the other children in the street. The boys were always getting up to mischief and, once they were old enough, the dares and tricks became more challenging. The gang – Joey B, Joey G, Kenny, Walter and Georgie – would head straight for the woods at the back of the garden to build dens or climb their favourite tree. It was thick, old and rotting and, one afternoon, it was decided that the tree was coming down. ‘You got your axe, Kenny?’ Ted shouted at his stocky school buddy striding towards him between the oaks. Kenny grinned, swinging the axe casually, even though it was bigger than him. It was his father’s and he wouldn’t have been too pleased if he’d known his son had taken it. Joey G was with Kenny, his very own axe slung over his shoulder. Joey B was already at the foot of the tree. He was the best climber of the lot of them: ‘Give him a leg-up, Walter.’ Walter dutifully did as he was told and the rest watched as Joey shimmied up to act as lookout.

The group set to work, taking turns to swing at the trunk. It was a test of pre-pubescent strength as much as it was a shared challenge. Ten minutes in and they were sweating like crazy. This was much harder than any of them had imagined and yet no one wanted to give up. A shout cut through the silence – ‘Copper’s coming!’ – from Joey, their lookout. One second of staring wide-eyed at each other, the next they were scrambling through the undergrowth to get away.

Joey B watched from the top of the tree as his friends scarpered. Where were they going? Oh, hell! He jumped. He heard rather than felt his leg break. The next confused thought – before the agony set in – was that he’d only told them he’d seen their mate Cooper coming. Joey B had no idea how long it took his mates to realize he wasn’t trailing behind them; eventually they came slinking back to find him rolling around on the ground, breathing through the pain and begging to be taken to hospital.

Injuries withstanding, the boys would knock for each other and then go off the beaten track, mostly finding places they shouldn’t be. One day that involved heading to the back of the woods, behind the football pitches, where there was an isolation hospital for people with infectious diseases. Patients with tuberculosis, smallpox and diphtheria were tended to by nuns; all the Wednesbury children were banned by their parents from getting too close. There were even rumours it was haunted. All the more reason to play knock and run … or so thought Ted. Although one of those days he wasn’t quick enough and one of the nuns caught a glimpse of him as they all knocked on the door and sprinted away. She marched to the house and told Hilda everything, meaning that Ted was rewarded for his daring with a smack from his mum and a stern warning of what would happen if he ever did anything like that again.

Smacks weren’t rare: Maurice and Hilda were loving but strict. People sometimes assumed that children from big families could get away with anything, but that wasn’t the case with Ted’s family. His parents were caring of course, but if any of the kids stepped out of line they’d come down on them like a ton of bricks. The kids knew that when they walked out of their front door they were representing the family, so they had to look smart and behave. Some mothers used to say, ‘Wait till your dad gets home!’ – but Hilda wasn’t like that. She’d tell them off there and then and once they were disciplined, that was it; there was no waiting around until Dad got home to give them a hiding.

The first nine years of Ted’s life were set against the threat, and then the reality, of war. The young boys would often hear the distant roar of engines and, a few minutes later, they would look up and see the skies had turned black as the bombers flew across to Germany. When Ted was small, Hilda and Maurice did all they could to keep things normal for the children, but the stark realities were impossible to hide and the constant threat of bombing was the main source of angst for the adults, even if the children enjoyed the drama. At the back of the house a small air-raid shelter had been built with care by Maurice just before the war started. Whenever the air-raid sirens went off, Hilda, Maurice and the elder McDermotts hushed the babies and placed them gently in drawers that they covered with blankets while the rest of the family squeezed into the shelter. As she always did, Hilda would stand on the doorstep shouting for all the kids by name, until every single one of them came running down the street and flying into the shelter. Once they were all safely inside she would get in herself, satisfied that everyone was accounted for.

But life wasn’t always that dramatic and, even if the war did bring stress for the adults, the McDermott household was still one of routine, where everyone was expected to pull their weight. All the children had a job for the week that they needed to finish before playing out. Whether it was helping out Hilda in the kitchen, cleaning the carpets, folding the washing, clearing the garden or doing errands, everyone mucked in and did their part. Ted’s brother Fred remembers that on a Sunday, Maurice would be around to help with Hilda’s chores. His way of distracting himself and the others was to break into song, giving them rendition after rendition of old classics as they mopped, dusted, changed beds and beat rugs. ‘We couldn’t play out with our mates until those chores were done,’ says Fred. ‘You’d either have to take the rug up off the floor, give it a sweep, or clean the kitchen or sweep up outside.’

The eventual arrival of VE Day saw the whole of Friar Park out in the streets in celebration. Ted and the rest of the gang stood in the street as all the adults from the entire neighbourhood brought tables and chairs out for a huge party. Cakes were baked, bonfires were lit and drinks were poured. Ted had never seen anything like it in his life. The atmosphere was electric.

Normal life slowly resumed after 1945 and, to the children for whom air-raids and shelters were the norm, the war and all that came with it suddenly went away. The stories became fewer as people stopped talking about it so much and the old rhythm eventually returned to Wednesbury.

Chapter 2

The veil of war eventually lifted and, although Ted was only young, the feeling of uncertainty the war had brought with it had a very real effect on him as it did many others. To Ted, everything was temporary, and it soon became apparent that he had to enjoy every single day. He started looking for signs of life beyond messing about in the woods after school with his mates. While Hilda and Maurice carried on with the normal day-to-day routine, the end of the war opened up a curiosity in Ted and, somehow, more seemed possible. But despite his dreams for something more, supporting his family was the priority.

In his early teens, Ted took on as many odd jobs as he could handle, bringing in the extra pennies to help feed the still-growing family. He’d wake up at the crack of dawn to help deliver milk from the horse and cart, while every Monday he’d be wheeling an old pram around to all the women in the street, collecting their husband’s suits and taking them to a pawn shop in Darlaston. On a Friday he would collect them again so all the men could be suited and booted at the weekend.

Around this time, Ted formed what would become a lifelong habit of trying out different things he thought would make him happy and give him purpose, with varying degrees of success. Like most other boys on the estate, he had a strong interest in football, but it was his love of music that was his true passion.

This musical love affair began with Maurice taking the teenage Ted along to the local pub, The Coronation – nicknamed The Cora, one Saturday night. The Cora was a huge pub, built in the early 1930s when the rest of the Friar Park estate was still under construction. Back then in the 1950s it was packed every night – it had a smoke room, a kids’ room and a huge assembly room where bands could play. It was rough and ready but a magnet for local musicians and became known as the place to be. There he saw first-hand the magic of stepping up in front of the crowd and performing. Maurice would arrive like royalty, spend a few minutes chatting to his friends, and then be the first one up to sing. His favourite song was ‘Marta’ by Arthur Tracy and it was a real crowd-pleaser. By the end of his performance, the audience would be on its feet applauding. Maurice would then return to the bar, greeted by a series of backslaps and handshakes, before finding the drinks lined up waiting for him as Ted looked on in awe.

Ted soon found himself walking in his father’s footsteps when, aged 15, he left school and began working alongside Maurice at the Deritend forge. Everyone in the family had traditional roles – men went out to graft and Hilda would prepare a big portion of something hearty for lunch, and it was sometimes Marilyn’s (one of Ted’s younger sisters) job to deliver it to the working boys, whose stomachs were groaning by midday. They all knew her down at the factory and would let her walk straight in – there was no Health and Safety in those days – and as she watched them eat she was bowled over by how hard the men had to work, with the sweat pouring off them from their morning shift. Years later she remarks: ‘All the men had sweated so much that, by the end of the shift, they could stand their trousers up because of all the salt.’

The family work ethic was ingrained in Ted and he worked as much as he could, finally feeling as if he was earning his keep as well as bringing home a bit extra that he could spend on himself. He’d often work a 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift, come back home to Kent Road, then if there was extra work going, he would return to the factory and do the late shift until 10 p.m. At the end of the week he’d come home with his wages and hand Hilda the overtime.

‘Come on, Big’ Un, you’re a young lad, you need the cash!’ she’d say.

But Ted would have none of it: ‘No, Muv, you need it more than me. You’re the one with all the mouths to feed! Buy one of the kids some new shoes. Our Jane could do with a new pair,’ he’d say, walking out the kitchen before she could say anything else on the subject.

It was around the same time that Ted and his friends began to head down to the local church youth club, nicknamed The Shack. It was free entry most nights, but on special occasions, when the organizer, Mr Turner, had booked a band or a singer, there was a small charge on the door. Those nights were like a military operation for Ted. He would pay a shilling to enter, then go to the toilets to pass his ticket to Joey B, who would do the same to Kenny and Walter as they crouched outside underneath the window, hands stretched out to receive the illegal ticket.

On Saturday nights everyone made an effort to look the part, as it was the social highlight of the week for most of them – Ted’s brother-in-law, Tony, remembers:

‘All the boys wore their best suits and had their hair flattened down with Brylcreem. But however smart the crowd looked, it was Ted who always stood out. He’d walk in and command instant attention in his cream-coloured raincoat and white silk scarf. All the girls, whatever their ages, would swoon. He was the nearest thing to Dickie Valentine they’d ever seen.’ Even then Ted had the women in the palm of his hand without really knowing it; he just had a presence that made everyone stop and take notice.

By now, Ted had stopped relying on Hilda’s make-do-and-mend policy when it came to his clothes. As he was growing up, Hilda had prided herself on making most of the children’s clothes herself, going down to Birmingham Rag Market, buying second-hand garments, washing them, unpicking them, then sewing them all back together so they always looked brand new. But for Ted, that all stopped when he began to take charge of what he wanted to wear and carved out his own sense of style. He’d inherited Hilda’s pragmatic approach to work and knew it was an important means to an end. If you wanted something, you had to look the part – that was half the battle.

That applied to making the right impression at The Shack. It was a small place with plastic chairs and tables, nothing fancy or glamorous, but it was always full. Ted’s friends, however, were a different kettle of fish, and, unlike him, listening to the music wasn’t really their top priority. They were at The Shack for one reason only – and that was to chat up girls. This mission often backfired as they spluttered their way through most introductions and the girls soon tired of their boyish attempts at wooing and went off to laugh and dance together. There was a routine to every Saturday night, which started with trollies of tea and buns being brought round. Then the lights were turned down, the glitter ball switched on and the dancing began. Ted’s brother Ernie was always the first on the dance floor and soon both brothers became popular with the girls – Ted because of his looks and Ernie because of his moves.

But it wasn’t just Ted’s dress sense that made him stand out. As soon as Mr Turner brought out that record player, Ted would be singing along. Like his father he appeared to have very little fear of getting up onstage. After a while Ted acquired a name for having a voice like velvet and the young audience couldn’t get enough of him. They shouted and clapped encouragement and sang along approvingly as he got going. Being onstage and singing in front of a crowd was the most freeing feeling he’d ever experienced and he soon became addicted.

One Saturday, after Ted and his friends had become regulars at the club, Mr Turner announced that they’d booked a professional singer for the following week, which meant that it was going to cost everyone an extra sixpence to get in. There was much talk about who’d be coming and if there would still be the usual routine of tea, buns and dancing. It was a big deal and, the next week, the crowd was full of teenagers all dressed up, waiting to hear the mystery performer. There were also an unusual number of couples swaying in corners. It was clear that the smart-thinking boys had asked the girls they liked on a date that night – keen to impress with a booked performer and lively crowd.

Eventually the singer arrived, dressed up to the nines in a tuxedo – you could have heard a pin drop as he handed his pianist the music. Then he started singing. It took the crowd a while to register what was happening – there were no romantic crooning or show-stopping tunes; it was straight-down-the-line opera and it went down like a lead balloon. Ted’s brother-in-law Tony reminisces: ‘The room was full of teenagers used to Dickie Valentine and Jimmy Young and here was this guy singing arias. You can imagine the crowd’s reaction.’

A voice from the audience bellowed: ‘What the bloody hell is this?’ and suddenly everyone else joined in, making it clear this was not the night they had expected. After his third song, the singer announced that he’d be back after a break.

‘Dow bother!’ someone shouted from the crowd. ‘We dow want you back!’

By this time the whole room was booing and a near-riot was brewing. Mr Turner was trying his best to calm everything down, when suddenly someone shouted out: ‘Ted! Give us a song!’ Soon the whole crowd was chanting: ‘Teddy Mac! Teddy Mac! Teddy Mac!’

The opera singer walked off the stage in disgust.

‘And take your piano player with ya!’ shouted one of the boys.

Everyone jeered.

The pianist and the opera singer stormed out, with Mr Turner running after them apologizing. There was a huge cheer as Ted took the microphone and started to sing. He was up there for over an hour and he felt as if he was on top of the world, watching the crowd going wild, cheering him on and clapping loudly. Ted had saved the day but, more importantly, in that moment he realized that this was exactly what he wanted to do with his life.

Obviously his moment of fame meant that Ted became a Saturday-night regular, and he was soon packing out the little club whenever he got up and sang. But it didn’t take his brothers and friends long to work out that part of his attachment to the club was because someone had caught his eye – and they weren’t wrong. Ted was bowled over the minute he spotted a girl named Iris across the crowded room. Iris had an abundance of dark brown hair, she was beautiful and stylish and a couple of years younger than Ted, and he soon forgot about the group he had arrived with. He plucked up the courage to go over and introduce himself.

At 17 years old there was no doubt that Ted was a charmer (Hilda always used to say that he’d definitely inherited Maurice’s gift of the gab). He held out his hand and asked Iris for a dance. From that moment, Ted began to court Iris with a winning mixture of innocence and determination.

Ted’s brother Maurice says: ‘Things settled into a romantic pattern quite quickly – they would meet at the club, dance and laugh and then Ted would walk Iris home and wait until she got safely into her house. After a few weeks of the same routine they had slipped into officially being a couple without anyone noticing – except for Mom, who noticed everything.’

There was no denying the mutual feelings – Ted was attentive, gentle and caring, making sure that Iris knew he liked her. Despite not having much money he always saw to it that he gave her a little gift at the end of each date night, even if it was just a slab of chocolate that cost him a shilling. But what Ted hadn’t bargained for was the merciless teasing from his mates once they found out Iris’s age!

It was around this time that The Carroll Levis Discovery Show turned up in Birmingham searching for new talent. Carroll Levis was a Godlike figure in the entertainment industry during the Fifties, a talent scout, impresario and radio personality – he knew what it took to be a star and could spot that quality a mile away. Ted heard on the grapevine that his talent show was touring the country looking for someone with ‘it’ and he was determined to try out, taking the morning off work to go along to the audition. He took the bus from Wednesbury into the centre of Birmingham and made his way to the auditions alone. Although just 17, he was far from worried about having to get up and sing. Out of everything in his life, he knew that was the one thing he was good at. Ted knocked them out by singing ‘Sweet Sixteen’ and got through to the next round, which was a recording of the radio programme in London. But sadly it was not to be. As Jane, his sister, adds: ‘No one really knows the full story as it’s lost in time. It could have changed his life if he went. Someone once said that it was because the contestants had to pay insurance to appear on the show – something our Ted couldn’t afford – and he didn’t end up going.’

For now, singing professionally remained a dream that he couldn’t afford to pursue, in more ways than one.

Ted bringing in a wage (along with the eldest of his younger brothers) did take the pressure off Hilda and Maurice and the younger boys as it allowed them to enjoy their childhoods in a relaxed way – they all loved football and they played for the local team. They devoted themselves to football in the same way Ted committed to his music; the big problem was that the older brothers only had one pair of football boots between them, which often led to a big showdown.

Hilda soon cottoned on to this – but rather than keeping them under lock and key so that everyone got a turn, she thought this could be a valuable lesson for the boys: ‘If you make the effort and get up early then you’ll reap the reward.’ The only thing she was adamant about was that all of them made sure the boots were clean and ready for the next person to use.

While the younger lads were bickering over boots and who scored the most goals, Maurice loved working with his eldest son and felt a huge sense of pride watching him learn the ropes. But despite the happy routine they had, which included Hilda making them both a full breakfast in the morning and putting out their work clothes all freshly pressed, they both knew that National Service was looming when Ted turned 18. He was a man now but that didn’t stop the whole family dreading his departure – in many ways he was a big part of the glue that held the household together and a great support to Hilda, who wondered what would happen to her son when he was away from her watchful eye.

In the meantime, Ted and Iris’s innocent and charming courtship continued. Ted would take Iris to the bandstand to listen to music and sit on the bus holding her hand, telling her how beautiful she was.

‘Yam [you are] the air I breathe,’ Ted would tell her constantly.

‘Come on now, Ted, you’re embarrassing me,’ she’d reply.

Looking back at this time, Iris recalls: ‘Ted was always open about his emotions and wasn’t shy about saying what he felt. But I was young and I used to get embarrassed when he’d tell me stuff. It’s like he wanted everyone to know how he felt. I’d sit there holding his hand on the bus and I’d be bright red. He was ever so gentle, honestly. He would always tell me, “Yam beautiful.” Looking back now, it was nice if you think about it …’

Iris was soon round at 18 Kent Road nearly every night of the week, waiting for Ted to finish work. According to his brother, John: ‘Everyone loved Iris and she quickly became part of our family. Mum loved her being around – she’d help out around the house whenever she could, even looking after us little ones. She was ace.’

Iris had a very different backstory to Ted’s – her parents had died when she was young (her father of a brain tumour when she was a toddler followed by her mother from tuberculosis when Iris was 11) and she had been adopted by her nan. Ted found this heartbreaking to imagine, given how close he was to his own parents and how much he enjoyed coming from a big and loving family. Meeting Iris opened up a deep sense of emotion in him, she says: ‘I think he used to feel so sorry for me because I hadn’t got a mum and dad and had to live with my nan.’

Despite a few emotional differences, the young couple found something in one another and quickly became inseparable. They both had a good set of friends, but Ted had never been one to go off drinking with the rest of his mates. ‘Honestly, he could sit with me all night, talking away about what he’d done that day and what we could do at the weekend, and that’s how he liked it,’ says Iris.

They slotted easily into each other’s worlds – her friends thought she had struck gold with an adoring, older boyfriend who showered her with attention, his friends thought she was a stunner. Iris even became the football girlfriend, going along every Saturday to cheer on Ted from the sidelines. She would arrive with a big bag of oranges bought from the local fruit and veg stall, ready to cut them up and hand them out to the whole team at half-time.

But National Service was just around the corner, and before any of them could really feel prepared, they were saying goodbye to Ted as he went off for sixteen weeks of training in Litchfield, leaving Hilda full of worry and Iris counting down the days until they were reunited. Not knowing what was ahead of him, Ted put on a brave face, shouted his goodbye to Maurice, kissed Hilda farewell and made his way down Kent Road to begin a new chapter. Living through a war had taught them all to expect the unexpected – you just didn’t know what was waiting round the corner.

Chapter 3

‘There’s some room for the case underneath your bed. Put it away and be ready for inspection in five minutes.’

Those were the orders barked at Ted as he walked through the Whittington Barracks gates – his new home rising to greet him as he tried to keep pace with everyone else. Although there were lots of rules and regulations, it soon became apparent this set-up made some of Hilda’s rules back home look relaxed. Ted kept silent, quietly surveying the situation as the sergeant major stood shouting orders around the yard.

Those first few days and nights were long and filled with thoughts of what would be going on at home as Hilda served dinner and Maurice whistled along and helped pass the plates before heading to The Cora for ‘just the one’. It was a huge adjustment for Ted. At home he was undoubtedly Hilda’s favourite, but now he was just one of many lads trying to stand out for all the right reasons, although that was hard as, by default, any attention given down the ranks was rarely a positive thing. However, slowly but surely, the McDermott charm began to work its magic, as Ted started to make a real name for himself when it came to giving everything his absolute best.

Physically he was also one of the fittest – the football training he’d done as a lad with his brothers stood him in good stead for the cross-country circuits, where he repeatedly found himself first back and barely out of breath. Gradually he built up a reputation at the barracks that was identical to the one he had at home – reliable, fun, kind and a great entertainer. The latter became obvious one Saturday night a few weeks after he had joined, when he was asked to sing in front of the officers and their wives at their Christmas party. As he got ready to face the crowd and pulled on his perfectly pressed suit, it was hard not to think back a few years to the night he proudly accompanied Maurice to The Cora. There, Ted had watched his dad closely as he sang away and had the whole audience on their feet.

Tonight it was his turn. As ever, the crowd seemed to love it.

Life soon took on a reassuring pattern – being away from his family and Iris was hard, but Ted, ever the one to roll up his sleeves, enjoyed the rigour that Army life brought. He was top of the athletics and cross-country teams and because of his knack of chatting to everyone whenever he could, he made a few good friends at the barracks. A particularly close pal was Freddy Hyde, one of the officers’ chauffeurs. Both men instantly got on. They shared the same sense of humour and enjoyed seeing how far they could push the status quo, a trait that was to reveal itself in more detail as time went on. Ted landed himself a job in the kitchen, quickly deciding that it was a smart place to be as it kept you at the heart of things, as well as giving you access to any leftovers.

He soon became a firm favourite with both the officers and their wives: whenever there was a do on in the mess, Ted was always invited to sing. But it was the weekends that he lived for – it was his chance to get back to Kent Road to see Iris and the family. The first visit was allowed after he’d been away for a month, as the officers felt it was important for all the lads to bond for a few weeks and get used to their new surroundings. As the day of his visit home approached, Ted felt nervous and excited all at the same time. It felt strange not to speak to his brothers and sisters every day or argue over who was next in line for the bathroom. He knew it wasn’t a very manly thing to admit, but he’d missed his family more than he’d thought possible.

Back at number 18, the feeling was definitely mutual. Initially it was strange for the younger children to be at home without Ted and they missed the fact he wasn’t there (though after a few nights, they were pleased to have the extra bed to sleep in!). Sleeping arrangements aside, the excitement was palpable the first weekend he came home. They sat by the window all morning waiting to hear the sound of his boots on the path. The minute he put his key in the lock, the younger children pounced on him for hugs.

Once all the hellos had been exchanged, Ted opened up his bag to reveal treats galore: fruit, butter, cheese and tins of meat. The family couldn’t believe their eyes. Hilda was horrified and shouted at Ted: ‘Get that stuff back in case they catch you!’ but he just laughed and said: ‘Ah Mum, they’ll just throw it out.’ Ever the canny opportunist, Ted could see first-hand how much waste there was in the kitchen. At the end of every shift perfectly good food was thrown out (seemingly for no apparent reason, as it all looked fine to him). As far as he was concerned it wasn’t technically stealing if it was just going in the bin; in fact he was doing a good thing applying the ‘waste not, want not’ principle when food was scarce. And so began the weekly ritual of Ted bringing home all he could to help the household eat, something that seemed to have stuck from childhood, though Hilda often joked that at least he was using a bag now and not his suit pockets.

Despite living the high life at the barracks during the week, Ted was religious about his trips home. For his second visit he decided to surprise his brother John and his friends, who were all about 10 years old and planning a camping trip in the wood at the back of the garden. They were too proud to admit it, but they were scared – mainly because they had barely unpacked the tent when they heard something outside.

‘It was pitch-black when we suddenly heard this sound. We had no idea what it was, but we were terrified. We heard it move about and then stop right in front of our tent. We daren’t move. Anyway, we all eventually fell asleep but when we woke up in the morning and crept outside, there was our Ted, asleep in his Army overcoat, using his rucksack as a pillow. He’d come home and Dad had told him to pop outside and keep an eye on us because we were scared, but he’d slept outside all night to make sure we were OK,’ says John.

Maurice and Hilda had always drummed into Ted and his younger siblings the importance of behaving well in public. It was something that Ted would pass on to the younger ones whenever he could. As John explains: ‘He was ever so smart. After he started in the Army he would always tell us the importance of dressing well, the importance of how you behaved when you were out. I remember I had a football trial and he spent ages showing me how to press my trousers before I had to go down to the ground. Honest, he was forever looking out for us. I could never see any wrong in him.’

Ted felt proud to be able to come home and treat the family to some of the finer things in life – he wanted to share everything about his Army experience with them and that included bringing Freddy back to introduce him to the family. Hilda was delighted that her son was bringing an Army friend to the house and went to a lot of trouble to tidy up and prepare a good meal. Everyone was clean and smartly turned out, with Hilda determined they would make a good impression. As usual, they were all hovering by the window waiting for Ted to arrive, when suddenly Hilda gasped: ‘Oh, look at this! What’s this big car doing outside our house?’

Hilda was momentarily puzzled as to who on earth their visitors could be and what the neighbours would say about this fancy car when she saw Ted’s familiar grin as he slowly wound down the window. Suddenly she shouted: ‘GOOD GOD! They’ll get sent to bloody hell if they get caught.’ Maurice and the kids weren’t quite sure what was going on, as not all of them had seen Ted in the front seat. The next thing there was a knock on the front door and it was Ted and Freddy Hyde, dressed up in suits. They had arrived in the officers’ shiny car, complete with all the flags flying on the front. The younger kids couldn’t believe their eyes and Hilda went berserk as the boys stood outside on the doorstep, laughing wildly.

Whatever the scenario, Ted always retained a love of a good suit and a few weekends after his first homecoming, he arrived wearing a full tweed outfit, complete with shooting stick from one of the officers. Again, Hilda nearly had a fit when she saw him and screamed: ‘Get that off! You’ll be in the Jankers [Army prison]!’

But nothing seemed to faze Ted and, pretty much every weekend the officers were away, he’d come home with their best clothes – a different outfit every week – and go out in them to the local clubs, enjoying feeling like a millionaire and having the time of his life. After a few months he even turned up in a full evening suit – black tie, white shirt, even the hat. One of the lads in the Army with Ted says: ‘It sounds bad, but it was all done with the tacit blessing of the officers. They had great fun letting us think that they didn’t know what we’d been up to when we put it all back every Monday morning.’

It became a regular thing, especially if Ted was taking Iris out on a Saturday night. Once Hilda got over the shock and worry that Ted would end up in jail for stealing, she would get emotional every time she saw her son all dressed up. Maurice was less sentimental about the whole thing and would look up from whatever he was reading to simply say: ‘Teddy Bloody Big Head. Look at him, he acts like he owns the bloody street!’ But secretly he was full of pride and would go down the club, telling all his mates how well his son was doing and that he was destined for great and exciting things.

Freddy Hyde became part of the family, working his magic particularly brilliantly on Hilda. He would knock on the front door with a small gift and a winning smile, planting a kiss on her cheek. Once, he arrived and held his hand out, saying: ‘Come on, Mrs Mac, get in the car and I’ll take you for a ride up to Worcester.’ Off they went, with Freddy chauffeuring Hilda to the shops, helping her pack the bags and then driving her the long way home so that they would be seen cruising through the streets in a smart car, imagining the twitching curtains. Ted would also impress Iris with the car when they went out. Saturday night was their time together and they would still pop down to The Cora, where he had started to be greeted as a bit of hero, especially if he gave in to the persuasion of the crowd and took the microphone for a few songs. They were halcyon days, topped off only by the sense of pride the family felt as the day of his passing-out parade arrived.

Hilda was bursting with pride at the fact that Ted had passed his training and was serving his country, so there was much excitement when they found out that the parade would pass through the centre of Wednesbury. All the younger children were full of anticipation, not least as their school would be closed in honour. When the big day arrived, the main street completely shut down and people gathered along both sides of the pavement – it was almost like the end of the war all over again, with everyone coming together in a moment of celebration and solidarity. Hilda put on her best dress and made sure all the kids were as smart as they could be. They were all warned to be on their best behaviour and do their brother proud. Brother John was there on the day: ‘I was aged about 7 at the time and all of us went down to see Ted, including Iris. Mum made sure we were in prime position. All of a sudden we could hear the brass band. It was getting louder and louder as they came down Lower High Street. I was trembling with excitement.’

As the soldiers approached, Hilda kept shouting for everyone to look out for Ted. All of a sudden he was right there in front of them and the whole family was shouting ‘Ted! Ted! Ted!’ and cheering him on. As he passed, he gave them a wink and a smile and he was gone – it was all over in a flash. John turned to speak to their mother and saw her wiping away a few tears.

‘Why yam crying, Mom?’ he asked.

‘I’m not crying, I’m happy,’ she said.

Ted was feeling elated, too. Hearing Hilda, Iris and his younger siblings all shouting his name gave him the same buzz he felt when he got up onstage.

Afterwards there was a big do at the officers’ mess with food and drink and family members mingling. Ted introduced Iris to the rest of his mates and everyone stood around making small talk. After a little while one of the officers started talking to Hilda and eventually ushered her through into a separate room. She was greeted by an officer she hadn’t met before.

‘Mrs McDermott, how do you do?’

‘Very well, thank you,’ said Hilda, smiling.

‘I wanted to say what an absolute credit your Ted is to you, one of the team and what a cracking singer, that voice!’

They both stood there making small talk, but Hilda could sense that he was leading up to something. Deep inside her she knew what it would be and she dreaded it.

She asked him outright: ‘Yam sending him abroad?’

‘We might be, Mrs McDermott,’ he replied.

Hilda paused for a moment, aware of who she was talking to, and replied: ‘I hope you don’t. He’s got thirteen brothers and sisters and I rely on him.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said.

So that’s how Ted didn’t get posted abroad when he was in the Army. Instead he became a batman – a soldier assigned to a commissioned officer – and his chores involved cleaning, bringing food at mealtimes and sorting his clothes as well as doing any errands. In effect, he managed to have a role that was important but which involved none of the danger.

It seemed a bit of a charmed Army experience and a world away from some of the hardships suffered by others. But his role did reinforce Ted’s obsession with being meticulous about his appearance and well-turned-out – his shoes always had an extra shine and he was never ready for the day unless he was wearing a tie and a sharply ironed suit.

The way Ted had managed to include the thing he still loved the most – music – in his work life was a brilliant stroke of luck. As the months went on, his confidence and reputation grew and so did Iris’s pride in her boyfriend’s talent. Things between them were going well. They were officially ‘steady’ and so would often spend evenings out with Hilda and Maurice. During Ted’s weekends off, the four of them would make their way to The Cora.

From 7 p.m. every Saturday, people would have to queue to get through the doors. Most weeks there was a skiffle group playing – a group of local musicians (realistically this meant anyone who could play a homemade instrument) that featured Desi Mansel on the drums, Ted’s younger brother Ernie on the base (which was actually a tea chest with lengths of string tied to it), and anyone who could play the piano. A guy called Teddy Price also sung. He was cross-eyed with big ears and bucked teeth and whenever he began to sing he’d shout out to the females in the crowd: ‘Look at the eyes, girls, look at the eyes.’ Another singer there was Kenny Kendrick, who lived next door but two to the McDermotts. He fancied himself as a bit of an Al Jolson, and always carried a pair of white gloves in his pocket in case he needed to sing. These nights stood out for Iris, who adored being part of such a large and loving family: ‘We all used to get dressed up, me, Ted, his mum and dad, and make our way down to The Cora. Ted was always dressed immaculately. Those nights were some of my best memories from when I was younger. It was packed. Maurice would always be the first one to get up and sing – he had a wonderful voice – he’d always sing, “You’re Nobody ’Til Somebody Loves You”. Ted started singing that song, too. Later on in our relationship, he used to say to me, “If I can’t see you, look at the clock at 11 o’clock and I’ll be singing, “You’re Nobody ’Till Somebody Loves you. And I’d have to play that record then.’

It was Iris who first realized that there was more than a hint of anxiety behind the apparently confident Ted just before he stepped onto the stage. The stress would come on just as he was gearing up for his turn in the spotlight, and he would suddenly start rubbing his nose. It became a telltale sign that the nerves and excitement were threatening to overwhelm him. Iris understood that it was less about being shy (after all, Ted could stir himself to step up onto the stage in front of total strangers) and more like an energy that he couldn’t control. And once she started noticing this anxiousness before Ted’s performances, and as she got to know him better, it became clear that offstage he could easily become downbeat and gloomy without an impending performance to look forward to.

Ted worked hard to keep these feelings to himself, especially as it really wasn’t the done thing for men to discuss such things in the 1950s. He also knew, once he left the Army and began working, those feelings couldn’t make an appearance. Deep down Iris knew that he needed love, affection and reassurance to keep him on an even keel and she worried about him, but nevertheless they had a volatile relationship and he sometimes had mood swings that tried her patience.

Eventually, after three years together and despite the rows, Ted decided that he wanted to make Iris his wife. Perhaps he thought it would help bring a much-needed calm to their relationship. Ever the romantic, he planned his proposal meticulously and to add to the sense of occasion and drama, he decided to do it around Christmas 1956. Hilda was delighted that her eldest son was settling down – she liked Iris being around and she was practically part of the family anyway. But having a ring on her finger didn’t necessarily put an end to their problems or Iris’s concerns: ‘That ring was in the garden more times that it was on my hand,’ she laughs. ‘He would get very jealous. I think two weeks after he gave me the ring he told me he wanted it back! His friends used to come up to me and say, “Oh, you look nice, Iris,” because they knew it would wind him up. I’d tell him not to be silly but he would sulk afterwards like I’d been flirting with them!’

Iris and Ted did get engaged and stayed that way for years – certainly more than most couples who had decided to spend the rest of their lives together, but they finally split up in the early 1960s when Ted was 24 years old. All these years later, even Iris isn’t really sure why their great love affair came to be over.

‘Why did it end? Oh, I don’t know. We had one of our usual arguments – he was very possessive of me and always worried I’d go off with another bloke. But this argument was just a lot bigger and it lasted a lot longer than the rest and we never got back together,’ she says. ‘I started seeing my husband soon after. Ted disappeared and my husband came along – nice car, wonderful job – he had everything and I was married to him twelve months later. I had grown up with nothing and I wanted to have a different life.’

Ted’s version of the break-up was very different and, as Iris says, steeped in his fear of Iris leaving him for another man. According to Ted, both of them were holding down two jobs – Ted had left the Army by then and gone back to working double shifts at the Deritend from six in the morning to ten at night, while Iris was working at Elwell’s during the day and at the Hippodrome cinema in the evening. One day Ted came home from work early and Hilda asked him if he was ok. Ted told her that he didn’t feel right and so had finished work early. Hilda cooked him something to eat, he had a bath and then he decided to go into Wednesbury to see Iris. He drove down on his pink scooter – a DKR Dove – and waited outside her work to surprise her. But instead, according to Ted, he watched Iris come out of the cinema and get on the back of the motorbike belonging to one of Ted’s friends in the Army. They had words and the engagement ring went over a garden wall at the bottom of Rydding Lane. Ted didn’t tell anyone and went straight to bed as soon as he got home.

The next day, Hilda got up to make breakfast and start the daily chores. She went straight for the boys’ bedroom and pulled open the handmade curtains, where she found Ted still in bed. She had no idea why he hadn’t gone to work and was just about to start quizzing him, despite the fact he was pretending to be asleep, when suddenly there was a loud bang coming from the front of the house as the gate slammed shut and someone started hammering on the front door. Hilda peered through the curtains in the front bedroom and saw that it was Iris’s nan making all the noise. She went down to calmly open the door and started to speak, but didn’t get a chance to say a word before the woman launched at her:

‘I wanna see your Teddy. I wanna know what he’s said to our Iris. Hers crying her eyes out and she won’t go to work.’

Hilda still had no idea what was going on and shouted upstairs for Ted to come down and explain himself. Ted came down the stairs in just his trousers, put his bare feet into his shoes, calmly put on his jacket and walked past the two women stood on the step. ‘I dow wanna talk about it. I’m going,’ he said.

That was the last time Hilda and the family saw Ted for over three weeks. Everyone was distraught and worried – even Iris who told Hilda she hadn’t seen him but didn’t give the whole story about the row and the concerns she’d had before they split up. Then one Sunday dinnertime, Ted’s nan came over and told Hilda that he was safe with her. The whole road must have heard Hilda exhale with relief. ‘Just give him some time,’ she said.

The next day Hilda went over to Walsall to try and persuade Ted to come home, but as soon as he saw her coming up the path, he walked out the back of the house, too embarrassed to be seen like that by his mum.

Eventually, after a number of failed attempts, Hilda finally managed to persuade him to come home. She warned everyone back at Kent Road not to say a word about Iris to Ted and on the night of his return, while the rest of the family were sat in the front room, Ted opened the front door and went straight upstairs to bed without speaking to anyone. He stayed in his room for days. It was a low point for the whole house to see Ted in that state. His sister Jane says: ‘After a while he got over it, though – and that’s when he really started to enjoy his life.’

But no one really knew until years later how deeply the end of the relationship had affected Ted.

Chapter 4

On the face of it at least, things soon went back to normal for Ted. His National Service had ended after a lively eighteen months, and everyone was relieved to see him getting on with things. But what they didn’t glimpse lurking beneath the happy-go-lucky demeanour was discontent: Iris’s observations about Ted’s tendency to feel anxious were well founded. To Ted, everyone else seemed to have their lives sorted – jobs, partners and children, a clear life plan, but his structure had fallen away. He didn’t have the discipline of the Army, he didn’t have a house or a car or anything really; all he owned were his records. Ted wasn’t so much driven by making money or having material goods, his enjoyment in life came purely from making people happy – from entertaining and looking after everyone, which was unusual at a time when things were tough and the world was very much ‘every man for himself’.

The late 1950s and early 60s were a relatively prosperous time across the country, but nevertheless making ends meet was generally very hard for a lot of normal families. Ted still witnessed Maurice and Hilda watching every penny and he continued to make sure that any extra he had went into the household. Leaving the Army had been a blow for him, and returning to the factory, seeing all the old faces still there, plugging away to make ends meet, felt like taking a step backwards. His brothers and sisters were growing up and one by one leaving the family home. Life slipped back into a familiar pattern: the only thing missing was having Iris as his girlfriend.

That said, it was impossible for Ted to fully close the door on that relationship, mainly as Iris would still come round the house to see Hilda. The two women had formed a strong bond and neither was ready to cut the other off completely, despite the break-up. Ted tried to take this in his stride and was relieved that these visits would often take place before he finished work. However, there was the odd occasion when Iris’s perfectly timed exit didn’t quite pan out. It all came to a head about a year or so after the couple had split up and Ted came in from work to find Iris still there. He went into the kitchen to put the kettle on, as he did every night he came home, and handed everyone a mug of steaming tea, everyone except Iris.

‘Where’s mine?’ she asked.

‘In the kettle. You can make your own,’ he replied.

The hurt between Ted and Iris still ran deep in him, so he clutched on to a new daily routine to bring him order and structure. He wasn’t remotely interested in finding a new girlfriend and instead started spending time with his brothers – down at the club and out and about. His brother John remembers: ‘After he came out of the Army, Ted would spend hours polishing his shoes – so much so that you could see your face in them. If I was going somewhere with the school, he’d show me how to tie my tie. He’d say, “Come here, you. You ay going out like that. I’ll show you how to do a tie,” and he’d sit there and show you how to do it.’

Friday night was the real performance though – everything had to be absolutely perfect and even his handkerchief would be pressed and placed across the top of his jacket pocket in a neat line.

Before he went out, Ted would make sure that Hilda had given him the once-over: ‘What do you think of this, Muv?’

‘Looks alright, Ted,’ she would reply.

Then he’d head back upstairs to finish getting ready. A few minutes later he’d be back in the kitchen with the handkerchief refolded in a different style – this time with three points to it.

‘You think this one looks better?’ he’d ask.

‘Well, yeah, it’s alright,’ Hilda would say, not really paying attention.

This performance would usually repeat itself until Maurice looked up from his newspaper and bellowed: ‘FOR CHRIST’S SAKES, it’s a bloody handkerchief!’ But in spite of this, he was delighted to see his son looking the part. He’d watch Ted walk out of the front door and up the path with quiet delight, often turning to his wife and saying: ‘Look at him, our Hild. He walks down that street thinking he’s a bloody millionaire! He might not have a penny in his pocket but he’s singing and whistling to himself like he hasn’t got a care in the world.’

A well-turned out appearance became one of Ted’s defining features. His quest for the perfect ‘look’ often meant that if he didn’t have the outfit he wanted, he would simply borrow from his brothers in order to create the right ensemble. His brother Colin was the usual target: ‘I remember one time I’d just got paid and bought myself a new top from Burton’s one Saturday. I’d come home, “had my tea and then Ted goes, “Col, can you lend me half a quid?” I said, I can, but yam gotta start looking after your money a bit better, our Big.” Anyway, me and Micky Felton went up the Adelphi and then afterwards we popped into the Star and Garter for a drink. Who was sitting at the bloody bar? Our Ted, smoking a little cigar with half a Guinness … and wearing my bloody new top. I didn’t say anything and asked him if he wanted a drink. The next day I asked our mum, “Did Big have my new top on last night?” “No,” she’d say, and would always cover up for him. He could do no harm in her eyes!’

In fact, Hilda was happy to aid and abet when it came to Ted ‘borrowing’ his brother’s clothes – if he wore one of Colin’s suits the next day, she would brush it down and hang it on the line to air it out.

Despite being a regular at The Cora and the many other pubs in Wednesbury, Ted would hardly drink. ‘You could buy him half a shandy and you’d be pressed to see if it had gone down by half an inch by the end of the night,’ says John. ‘On the nights that he was singing, he’d have a glass of tea – everyone used to think that he’d be drinking neat whisky. That’s what kept him so fit.’

Despite the banter about Ted’s love of the finer things in life, family loyalty was everything for the McDermotts, and Ted led the way in making sure they weren’t disrespected. He had a bit of clout locally – a good job at the factory, a successful Army record and a great voice that dominated the local clubs. A few years after coming back from the Army, he continued this tradition while defending his niece, Lorraine. She was the daughter of his brother, Fred, and his wife, Edna. From a young age, Lorraine had suffered with a slow eye, which meant she had to wear a big patch over her glasses to correct it. One day she went to play at a friend’s house – it was the Spooner family and they had lived on the same street as the McDermotts since Ted was a boy. All the children had grown up together, playing out and getting into all sorts of scrapes, and their parents went to The Cora together on a Friday night.

None of that history mattered to Ted as soon as he saw Lorraine bolt through the front door in tears – he was in the front room and shouted out: ‘What the bloody hell’s happened?’ Lorraine didn’t want to say anything at first but eventually they persuaded her to tell them – it turned out that one of the Spooners had said it would bring bad luck on the house if Lorraine looked directly at her with her bad eye. Ted didn’t wait around to hear the rest of the conversation – he marched to their house, banged on the door with the force of a hurricane and, as Spooner opened the door to see what all the racket was about, he knocked him out with one clean punch. As he left Spooner out cold in the hallway, he shouted over his shoulder: ‘Dow you talk about our kid like that again.’

A few weeks later, Ted and Spooner were down at The Cora again having a beer and listening to music, no grudges held but a point made and a warning thrown out to anyone else who tried to disrespect his family.

Ted wasn’t scared of authority either, and if the people in charge were the ones upsetting anyone in the family, they got the same treatment. One day, when his little brother, Malcolm was only about 12 or 13 years old, he came home from school sobbing and with food around his face, saying that the teacher had shoved his head into his dinner because he’d refused to finish his vegetables. Well, Ted saw red immediately and went striding down the road to the school, to find this so-called teacher and see what he had to say for himself. As he turned the corner, he saw two policemen waiting and as he approached, they put out their hands to slow him down: ‘Steady on, mate, where you going? We know why you’re here but you need to calm down, OK?’ It turned out that as soon as the teacher realized the boy he’d attacked was a member of the McDermott family, he told the headmaster and decided to call the police in anticipation of trouble. It seemed that Ted’s reputation for protecting his own went before him.

It wasn’t often that the kids went home and confessed to being in trouble and receiving the cane, as they knew they would get an extra clip round the ear for being a pain at school. But something like this was different, especially with a family that didn’t take too kindly to any sort of disrespect. The teacher couldn’t apologize quickly enough to Ted, who simply replied: ‘It’s not me yam gotta apologize to, it’s my brother you need to say sorry to.’ Once the matter was resolved, the second policeman, a friend of Ted’s, took him aside and said: ‘If I were you, mate, I’d wait for him and I’d give it him. If that was my brother or child, I’d wait for him and I’d make sure he wouldn’t do it again.’ But Ted felt he had dealt with the situation – his sister Chris avows: ‘Our Ted wasn’t violent, he wasn’t like that at all, but he would always stick up for what was right. If anybody said anything, well, that was it. He wouldn’t let anyone put on we.’

***

In his early twenties, Ted was well known around the pubs in Friar Park for getting up and singing whenever he could. But despite working in the forge during the day, it was a chance meeting with an old Army mate, Tommy, that took his life in a different direction.

They were catching up over a drink one night, putting the world to rights, when Ted was offered an opportunity he couldn’t turn down. Tommy’s father worked at Walsall Football Club and had told him about the need for an announcer at the matches. Ted grabbed the opportunity with both hands – not only would it give him the extra pounds for his pocket, but it would also allow him free entry to the match as well as being able to put his vocal talents to good use.

After a quick training on how to use the Tannoy system, he soon had a regular gig every match day down at the club. As well as the standard announcements, he would entertain the crowd by playing records and reading out the raffle results. He was in his element. He slowly made a name for himself with the managers at the club, mainly as he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind, sharing ideas about what he thought would help contribute to the club’s success.

‘You gotta bring the women in more,’ he told one of the directors. ‘Get them in and the blokes will follow.’

It was a good idea. Soon the club was putting on a ‘posh’ buffet with drinks after the match. Music was the perfect accompaniment – which gave Ted the opportunity to perform alongside some big and brilliant acts. The platform was way more substantial than at the local clubs, the crowds were bigger and the nerves more palpable, but the adrenalin rush was just the same. The success of the events meant that Ted was given a full-time job at the club and put in charge of promotions, enabling him to leave the forge.

It was also a dream come true for Ted’s brother John. He was football-obsessed and took Ted’s job as an opportunity to be down at the club whenever he could. Ted had been there a few months when he came home one night shouting for John to ‘Get yer boots on! We’m a player short at Walsall and we need you to come down and play for a second team.’ John couldn’t get down there quick enough and played a blinding match – he wowed them all so much that they wanted to sign him up there and then. But doing so would have meant walking away from a steady job just when he was about to get married, and he had to pay the bills, not ‘run around a pitch for a living and hope it would fill the electricity meter’. These were obviously the days before players could earn a fortune and John became one of a long line of McDermott men who had to push aside their dreams for the sake of providing a roof over the heads of their loved ones.

Because the McDermott boys did pull their weight, they were never out of work despite the turbulent times, and Hilda felt proud to have raised them. As they got older, the priority was no longer pulling them out of bed for school, it was setting them all up with a good breakfast and clean clothes for a heavy day at work. One by one that responsibility became another woman’s, as each of the sons married and moved out.

Ernie, Maurice and Fred tried to make their money away from the factory; the three of them worked at a huge slaughterhouse, killing over 1,000 pigs a week. Ernie inherited Ted’s knack for spotting a way to bring home extras and always managed to snag a few slices of meat, making sure that his mum and the rest of the family had food. Like all families at the time trying to make ends meet, the McDermott boys loved to see how cheeky they could be when it came to sneaking extras. Each was full of charm and worked so hard that no one minded if they took a little on the side. It was the same story in every household, and if the boys put in the hours, bosses were happy to turn a blind eye. There are many stories about how Ernie once came home after work with a row of sausages wrapped around his waist, tucked under his shirt away from sight. Eventually, his brother Maurice became one of the deliverymen – which meant even more meat for Kent Road. ‘No one starved in our house,’ he used to say.

The gaffer of the slaughterhouse, Mr Hollinsworth, was a fan of the McDermotts, often saying to Fred as he left on a Friday: ‘Tek that for your dad’s tea’, and handing him a few slices of something for the weekend. Ernie and Maurice had other odd jobs, too – it was very much a family affair and they all did their bit to try and take some of the pressure off Maurice and Hilda whenever they could.

Although having a job for life would have provided some security, it just wasn’t like that in Ted’s part of the world in the late 1960s. You had to be nimble and willing to turn your hand to almost anything because things were changing all the time. So when work at the football club dried up, Ted had to weigh up the reality of working somewhere in town with fewer paying shifts just so that he could sing against moving on and taking more regular work with better pay. The need for a regular wage won the day and Ted, Fred, Morris and Ernie all ended up getting jobs with Wimpey, a company who were building new homes around the Midlands in places such as The Woods Estate, Bulls Hill and Hollyhead Road.

Ted got a job as a watchman on one of these sites and immediately earned himself a reputation as a loveable joker, sticking his head in the cement mixer and singing a tune, asking them what it sounded like. He was always singing and, just as in his Army days, constantly dreaming of other things. He always made sure he did the job in hand and was respectful to his co-workers and bosses, but he found it hard to concentrate on anything that wasn’t music, so the job was a godsend. The site in question was just down the road from his house, so he would have a quick look round to check everything was in order and then slope off home to learn his songs and watch TV (they’d only just been able to afford one, so the novelty still hadn’t worn off).

This all worked brilliantly for Ted until one day, as he sat with his feet up watching a TV show and eating his lunch, one of the local kids started banging on the door and screaming: ‘Fire! Fire!’ At first Ted thought he was pulling his leg and that maybe one of his brothers had sent the kid to wind him up, but then he heard the fire engines racing up the road. Ted had never run so fast in his life as he sprinted to the site to find it was indeed on fire. It was a disaster and the others couldn’t wait to tell his dad what had happened on Ted’s watch – it was one of those rare times when Maurice went mad at Ted – this was definitely something he couldn’t charm his way out of. His parents made it clear how unimpressed they were, as did his bosses. It all blew over eventually, but it definitely taught him a valuable lesson.

Ted’s wheeling and dealing became legendary – especially when he went through the phase of offering to put on bets for some of the blokes on the building site. He and his mate Georgie had more freedom than the rest to come and go from the site and were able to slip away to place bets for all the workers, who were almost religious about gambling. One day a chap gave them a double bet to put on. Ted was adamant they had backed the wrong horse and wouldn’t win anyway, and so he decided to keep the money instead.

Ray Barns worked on the site with Ted and knew that he hadn’t placed the bet and so was keeping an eye on the race for him – the next thing you know he’s bursting through the doors to where Ted was quietly having a cup of tea on his break and shouting: ‘Ted, Ted! That horse has only gone and bloody won 100 to 8!’ They all dashed back to the betting office, praying the next horse wouldn’t win. It was neck and neck and went to a photo finish. Ted and Georgie were panicking because they were about to lose a month’s wages each. Luckily for them the horse lost; it was probably one of the closest calls he had.

Moving forward, Ted’s varied career included working for the council in the gardens, often driving home for his lunch in a dumper truck he’d ‘borrowed’ (despite not having a driving licence), and then working for the water board. He wasn’t beyond enlisting the younger kids to earn extra cash either, telling them to keep their eyes peeled for a leak in the street, as he would get paid extra for spotting any and reporting them.

Weekends were still a time for Ted to let down his hair and now that he was that bit older and had more spare cash, he would travel further afield than The Cora. He started popping up to Taffy Griffiths Coach Station on Crankhall Lane in Wednesbury. He’d ask the coach drivers where they were headed and if he fancied it – usually Blackpool or Worcester – would find a spare seat and off he’d go. He didn’t have a grand plan but was happy to travel where the wind took him. Not shy of talking to strangers and in search of a new adventure, he would pal up with someone on the coach and end up singing in an unknown bar or club, where they’d often have a collection for him, before heading back on the first coach the next morning. After a while most of the drivers got to know him and would let him sleep in the back of the coaches – sometimes they’d even wait for him to make sure he had a lift back home. Blackpool was a regular holiday destination for many of the lads on the estate, though perhaps a less popular choice just for a night out, but Ted had no qualms about going further from home for more singing experience, sometimes even entering talent shows and winning. Hilda never knew if he was coming home or not, but she learned not to fret if his bed was empty in the morning.

‘He never looked on the bad side of life,’ says Ted’s brother-in-law, Tony. ‘No matter what you talked about, he’d always make it cheerful. It was as if all the troubles of the world could be on his shoulders but he was always out smiling. He never worried about a thing.’

One thing that Ted did learn early on was that even though singing wasn’t ever going to be his main job, it could still bring in some cash, and he’d often tell his brother Maurice: ‘If you can get up and play an instrument or sing, you don’t need any money when you go out’ cos they’ll have a collection for you afterwards.’ This was particularly true in The Cora, where the crowd were brilliant at showing appreciation for great singers: it spoke volumes that there was always a collection for Ted whenever he got up to sing.

Chapter 5

Ted remained close to all of his brothers – even as time marched on and they married, inevitably making their own lives outside the family home. He and Ernie were particularly tight, but so many of their scrapes and stories will remain untold – swallowed by the ravages of Alzheimer’s in Ted’s case and Ernie’s early death from cancer in 2012.

Ernie probably knew more about the inner workings of Ted’s mind than anyone else and their bond meant that he could see beyond his brother’s cheery persona and ability to always see the good in any situation. Ernie’s friends used to describe Ted as someone who could pick up any conversation and make it upbeat, but there was far more to him than that and his brother knew it. The frustration of not being able to make his passion a full-time job disheartened Ted as he got older and the opportunities slipped further away. He was most definitely ahead of his time and there was an honour in wanting to pursue it, but there was also the reality of responsibility and Ted knew he couldn’t escape that; no one could.

But no matter how much real life kept elbowing its way in, Ted remained committed to music. Whenever a new record came out, he would go straight up to Paradise Street in West Bromwich and he’d return home with both the record and the sheet music, so that he could take it to the pub and ask the pianist to play it while he sang. One of his favourite record shops was Al Cooper’s – he knew the owner and was always popping in and out whenever he could. In the cellars Al had all the old records from years back that he hadn’t managed to sell; all the real classics had a little stamp on them – 2d – which was about the price of a pint of beer. So Ted would be down there for hours listening to Al’s record stash, drinking tea and singing along – it was his ideal way to spend the day.

Playing music at Al’s and at home took the edge off everything, even the fact he had very little money. He’d drive the household – particularly Maurice – mad as he repeatedly stopped and started tracks on his home record player, writing down the lyrics line by line so that he could learn them off by heart and sing the song all the way through over and over again. Maurice could often be heard shouting, ‘For Christ’s sakes, Big’ Un! If you’re gunna play it, play it!’ A new track would be learned every Saturday without fail, then Ted would get dressed up and go down to The Cora to perform it. He had his finger on the pulse and never executed the same track twice. He’d always make sure he listened to up-and-coming songs right away, often sending his younger sister, Joyce, down to Woolworths with enough cash to buy a new record and a bag of broken biscuits as a reward for helping him out. In truth, ‘that bloody record player’ (as it was known) could have blown up the house, as at the time there were no plug sockets upstairs. That meant Ted running the cable to the record player through a light – essentially running a naked wire straight from the light fitting in the ceiling. It was just as well that no one was aware how dangerous this was, because it definitely took the idea of dying for his music to a whole new level. In fact, although Ted was known for helping out in any way he could, the one area that he was encouraged to keep away from was DIY. Hilda lived in fear of him trying to fix anything. She learned to keep quiet when anything went wrong in the kitchen, particularly if it involved the electrics. If Ted became aware there was a problem, he would drop everything, roll up his sleeves and say to Hilda: ‘Right, what do you need me to do?’, insisting until she felt she couldn’t say no without hurting his feelings. The whole house knew what a disaster he was and Malcolm, Gerry and Karen would often hide behind the kitchen door, laughing as Ted got to grips with the job in hand. Often, if he didn’t have a plug, he would just feed wires straight into the socket with a couple of matchsticks wedged in to stop them falling out.

The worse of this ‘Heath Robinson’ behaviour was reserved for the new family washing machine. When Hilda was finally able to throw out the tin bath and afford a proper washer (that didn’t involve wringing out wet sheets until her hands were shredded to ribbons), it was among was the happiest days of her life.

Although the new machine revolutionised Hilda’s life, it kept breaking down – it was second-hand and had been bought through a friend of Maurice’s at The Cora. That meant there was no real way of getting it fixed in a proper shop, so Ted would often volunteer to see if he could sort it out. Hilda would try and hold her tongue as she watched him take the whole thing apart, screw by screw, parts scattered all over the kitchen, messing up the floor that she had just cleaned. It would take him hours to put everything back together again but, without fail, there would always be one piece left over. Danger and lack of expertise withstanding, it was Ted’s way of trying to be useful, and deep down Hilda loved the way he devoted himself to making life better.

It was around this time, in 1964, that Ted started hanging around the Pebble Mill studios in Birmingham, where the BBC was based. He met a lot of great people, all music lovers like him, all trying to turn their passion into something more, but there were three guys in particular who Ted, aged 28, met at this time and who would go on to transform his life: Ben Beards, Geoff Thompson and Fred Timmins. They were in similar situations to Ted – particularly Ben, who had a day job as a machinist at Wilkins and Mitchell in Darlaston, near Wednesbury, to provide for his wife and three young children. Despite the pressure on him to bring home a decent wage, he also played the piano accordion and used his skill to earn extra cash and help pay his mortgage. Geoff, a 30-year-old drummer, joined him, and the two of them got a regular gig at a pub over in Bilston, where they were joined by Fred, a 22-year-old guitarist: they billed themselves as ‘The Starliners’. Ben cleverly fitted his accordion with a microphone, allowing him to play the bass line and giving them a unique sound. Now and again he would get Fred to do a bit of singing, alongside playing his guitar, and this eventually led to a regular Thursday-night gig at the Friar Park Labour Club. The performances went down well but they didn’t quite have the audience on their feet clamouring for more. Fred’s vocals were OK, but not standout, and they knew deep down that was holding them back – what they needed was a real star to belt out the lyrics. They were in luck when one night, as they took a break during their set, a handsome and well-dressed bloke with perfect hair walked up to the stage and asked: ‘Can I sing wi ya, mate?’

It was Ted.

The band often had people coming up and asking to sing, and it mostly didn’t work as it was impossible to get a stranger to hit the right notes with no rehearsal. But there was something about Ted they thought was worth a go as he seemed to know his stuff.

‘Do you know “Mack the Knife” in C?’ he asked.

The band played the intro and Ted started the song flawlessly. The guys were stunned by the quality of his voice and his phrasing. By the time he had finished the whole audience was standing up and applauding – something that hadn’t ever happened to them before.

Ben turned to Ted: ‘You wanna job, mate?’ ‘Ar, go on. I’ll ’av a go,’ Ted replied.

‘That was the night our lives changed for ever,’ says Ben.

The following week or so, Ben booked a room in a pub to go through some songs with Ted, as well as buying a new portable organ to complete the band’s sound. ‘We only needed one crack at any song. He just got them – he always knew the words straight away, so things didn’t take much practising, it was unreal,’ says Ben.

After a couple of weeks of polishing their act, the band applied for a spot at the local Entertainers Club. It went down a storm. But there was one drawback – Ben felt Geoff the drummer was letting the band down, so he rang up Ronnie Cox, another drummer he knew, and he joined the band right away. It turned out that Ted and Ronnie knew each other – they’d grown up living a few streets apart, were the same age and had spent some of their earlier years getting into various scrapes and scuffles – and they got on like a house on fire. Ron was a real comic and Ted was constantly in hysterics at some of his jokes. It was strangely freeing for Ted, having someone else take the lead when it came to cracking jokes and keeping the mood up: it meant he could sing some of his best notes and not have to put on such a front. The chemistry worked perfectly and no one doubted that Ted was having fun. Ronnie would just have to make a passing comment to Ted onstage and then the next thing he’d be falling about laughing hysterically.

For the next few months, the band kept the regular gig at the Friar Park Labour Club to polish their performances and to try out new songs. But they wanted bigger crowds, a higher bar, to challenge themselves with an audience that wasn’t made up of locals who already knew and loved them. Finally, after perfecting their act, they were ready to up their game. Everything was now in sync for The Starliners to move on to bigger things. So they began to spread the net wider, and auditioned at different clubs in the area.

In the mid-1960s all the other bands were trying to copy The Beatles or The Shadows and were made up of kids ten years younger than Ted and the rest of the guys, who were all in their late twenties or early thirties. Sometimes the crowd didn’t always appreciate the different style of music that The Starliners, with their broader musical influences, brought to the stage. But the rest of the time, their refusal to conform was their best asset, something that became gratifyingly obvious during one particular open audition night at Rugeley Miners Club. This audition night was the one time every month that the Midland’s Entertainment Association – a group of social secretaries who were responsible for booking acts to play the pubs and clubs in the various local areas – were all in the same room and, once business had been taken care of, the night became the perfect shop window for them to witness potential talent first-hand. Bands would be queuing up to perform in front of the decision-makers in the hope of leaving an impression.

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